The second volume of "The Will to Power," even in its present
fragmentary form, is the most important of Nietzsche's works. It
draws together under one cover many of the leading doctrines voiced
in his principal constructive books, and in addition states them in
terms of his fundamental postulate--the will to power. In Volume I
of this work we had the application of this doctrine to morality,
religion and philosophy. In the present book it is applied to science,
nature, society, breeding and art. The notes are more analytical than
in the former volume; and the subject-matter is in itself of greater
importance, being more directly concerned with the exposition of
Nietzsche's main theory. Volume II is also fuller and more homogeneous,
and contains much new material. So compact is its organisation that
one is able to gain a very adequate idea of the purpose which animated
Nietzsche at the time of making these notes.
The will to power, the principle which Nietzsche held to be the
elementary expression of life, must be understood in order for one to
comprehend the Nietzschean system of ethics. Throughout all the books
which followed "The Joyful Wisdom" we have indirect references to it
and conclusions based on its assumption as a hypothesis. And, although
it was never definitely and finally defined until the publication of
the notes comprising "The Will to Power," it nevertheless was the
actuating motive in all Nietzsche's constructive writings. Simply
stated, the will to power is the biological instinct to maintenance,
persistence and development. Nietzsche holds that Darwin's universal
law of the instinct to mere survival is a misinterpretation of the
forces at work in life. He points out that existence is a condition--a
medium of action--and by no means an end. It is true that only the
fittest survive in nature as a result of the tendency to exist; but
this theory does not account for the activities which take place after
existence has been assured. In order to explain these activities
Nietzsche advances the theory of the will to power and tests all
actions by it. It will be seen that by this theory the universal law
of Darwin is by no means abrogated, but rather is it explained and
developed.
In the operation of Darwin's biological law there are many forces
at work. That is to say, once the fact of existence is established,
numerous forces can be found at work within the limits of existence.
We know that the forces of nature--acting within the medium of
existence which is an _a priori_ condition--are rarely unified and
directed toward the same result. In short, they are not reciprocal.
To the contrary, they work more often against each other--they are
antagonistic. Immediately a war of forces takes place; and it is this
war that constitutes all action in nature. A force in nature directed
at another force calls forth a resistance and counter-force; and this
instinct to act and to resist is in itself a will to act. Otherwise,
inertia would be the condition of life, once mere existence was assured
by the fittest. But life is not inert. Even when certain organisms
have accomplished the victory for existence, and are no longer moved by
a necessity to struggle for mere being, the will to action persists;
and this will to action, according to Nietzsche, is the will for power,
for in every clash of forces, there is an attempt on the part of each
force to overcome and resist the antagonistic one. The greater the
action, the greater the antagonism. Hence, this tendency in all forces
to _persist_ is at bottom a tendency of self-assertion, of overcoming
counter-forces, of augmenting individual power. Wherever this will to
persist is found, Nietzsche argues that the will to act is present; and
there can be no will to act without a will to power, because the very
desire for existence and development is a desire for power.
This, in brief, is Nietzsche's doctrine applied to the organic and
inorganic world. In its application to the ideological world, the
reasoning is not changed. In ideas Nietzsche finds this same will to
power. But in them it is the reflection of the principle inherent
in the material world. There is no will inherent in ideas. This
assumption of a reflected will to power in the ideological world is
one of Nietzsche's most important concepts, for it makes all ideas the
outgrowth of ourselves, and therefore dependent on natural laws. It
does away with the conception of supernatural power and with the old
philosophical belief that ideas are superior forces to those of the
organic and inorganic world. Nietzsche once and for all disposes of the
theory that there is anything more powerful than force, and by thus
doing away with this belief, he rationalises all ideas and puts thought
on a tangible and stable basis. In the opening section of the present
book where he applies the will to power to scientific research, the
whole of this new theory is made clear, and I advise the student to
read well this section, for I have been unable to present as clear and
complete an expositional statement of it in Nietzsche's own words as I
would have liked to do, owing to the close and interrelated manner in
which these notes were written.
Volume II of "The Will to Power" is in two books. The first is called
"The Principles of a New Valuation"; the second, "Discipline and
Breeding." The first book is divided into four sections--"The Will
to Power in Science," "The Will to Power in Nature," "The Will to
Power as Exemplified in Society and in the Individual" and "The Will
to Power in Art." The second book has three divisions--"The Order of
Rank," "Dionysus" and "Eternal Recurrence." Of the first section of
Book One, "The Will to Power in Science," I have already spoken. In
this section Nietzsche shows how arbitrary a thing science is, and how
closely related are its conclusions to the instinct of the scientists,
namely: the instinct of the will to power. Scientists, he holds, are
confronted by the necessity of translating all phenomena into terms
compatible with the struggle for persistence and maintenance. A fact
in nature unaccounted for is a danger, an obstacle to the complete
mastery of natural conditions. Consequently the scientist, directed
and influenced by his will to power, invents explanations which will
bring all facts under his jurisdiction and control, and will thereby
increase his feeling of power. As a result, the great facts of life
are looked upon as of secondary importance to their explanations, and
science becomes, not an intelligent search for knowledge, but a system
of interpretations tending to increase the feeling of mastery in the
men directly connected with it. Thus the law of the will to power, as
manifest in the organic and inorganic world, becomes the dominating
instinct in the ideological world as well.
It is well to speak here of truth as Nietzsche conceived it. We have
seen how he denied its absolutism and declared it to be relative. But
in his present work he goes further and contends that the feeling of
the increase of power is the determining factor in truth. If, as we
have seen, the "truths" of science are merely those interpretations
which grow out of the scientists' will to power, then truth itself must
be the outgrowth of this instinct. That which makes for the growth and
development of the individual--or in other words, that which increases
the feeling of strength--is necessarily the truth. From this it is easy
to deduce the conclusion that in many instances truth is a reversal of
facts, for preservation very often consists in an adherence to actual
falsity. Thus, the false causality of certain phenomena--the outcome of
logic engendered by a will to power--has not infrequently masqueraded
as truth. Nietzsche holds that this doctrine contains the only possible
definition of truth; and in this doctrine we find an explanation for
many of the apparent paradoxes in his teachings when the matter of
truth and falsity are under discussion.
The second part of the first book relates to the will to power in
nature, and contains the most complete and lucid explanation of
Nietzsche's basic theory to be found anywhere in his writings.
This section opens with an argument against a purely mechanical
interpretation of the world, and a refutation of the physicists'
concept of "energy." The chemical and physical laws, the atomic
theory and the mechanical concept of movement, he characterises as
"inventions" on the part of scientists and researchers for the purpose
of understanding natural phenomena and therefore of increasing their
feeling of power. The apparent sequence of phenomena which constitutes
"law" is, according to Nietzsche, only a "relation of power between
two or more forces"--a matter of interdependence, a process wherein
the "procession of moments do _not_ determine each other after the
manner of cause and effect." In these observations we see the process
of reasoning with which Nietzsche refutes the current methods of
ascertaining facts and the manner in which he introduces the principle
of will to power into the phenomena of nature.
It is in this section that Nietzsche discusses at length the points
of divergence between his life principle and that of Darwin. And it
is here also that he treats of the psychology of pleasure and pain in
their relation to the will to power. This latter statement is of great
importance in an understanding of the instincts of life as he taught
them, for it denies both pleasure and pain a place in the determining
of acts. They are both, according to him, but accompanying factors,
never causes, and are but second-rate valuations derived from a
dominating value. He denies that man struggles for happiness. To the
contrary, he holds that all expansion and growth and resistance--in
short, all movement--is related to states of pain, and that, although
the modern man is master of the forces of nature and of himself, he
is no happier than the primeval man. Why, then, does man struggle for
knowledge and growth, knowing that it does not bring happiness? Not for
existence, because existence is already assured him. But for power,
for the feeling of increased mastery. Thus Nietzsche answers the two
common explanations of man's will to action--the need for being and
the desire for happiness--by his doctrine of the will to power.
The entire teaching of Nietzsche in regard to classes and to the
necessity of divergent moral codes to meet the needs of higher and
lower castes, is contained in the third part of the first book. Here
again he emphasises the need of two codes and makes clear his stand
in relation to the superior individual. As I have pointed out in
preceding chapters, Nietzsche did not attempt to do away with the
morality of the inferior classes. He saw that some such religious
belief as Christianity was imperative for them. His fight was against
its application to all classes, against its dominance. I mention this
point again because it is the basis of the greatest misunderstanding
of Nietzsche's philosophy. Part III is written for the higher man, and
if this viewpoint is assumed on the part of the reader, there will
be no confusion as to doctrines encountered. The statements in this
section are in effect similar to those to be found in Nietzsche's
previous works, but in every instance in the present case they are
directly related to the will to power. Because of this they possess a
significance which does not attach to them in antecedent volumes.
The whole of Nietzsche's art theories are to be found in Part IV,
"The Will to Power in Art." It is not merely a system of æsthetics
that occupies the pages under this section, for Nietzsche never
divorces art from life itself; and the artist, according to him, is
the superior type, the creator of values. The concepts of beauty and
ugliness are the outgrowths of an overflow of Dionysian power; and
it is to the great artists of the past, the instinctive higher men,
that we owe our current concepts. The principle here is the dominant
one in Nietzsche's philosophy in relation to valuing:--_to the few
individuals of the race are we indebted for the world of values._ To
the student who wishes to go deeply into Nietzsche's ideas of art and
his conception of the artist, and to know in just what manner the
Dionysian and Apollonian figure in his theories, I unhesitatingly
recommend Anthony M. Ludovici's book, "Nietzsche and Art."
The first section of the second book in this volume contains some of
Nietzsche's finest writing. Its title, "The Order of Rank," explains in
a large measure what material comprises it. It is a description of the
various degrees of man, and a statement of the attributes which belong
to each. No better definition of the different classes of men is to
be found anywhere in this philosopher's writings. One part is devoted
to a consideration of the strong and the weak, and the way in which
they react on one another; another part deals with "the noble man"
and contains (in Aphorism 943) a list of the characteristics of the
noble man, unfortunately too long a list to be quoted in the present
chapter; another part defines "the lords of the earth"; another part
delineates "the great man," and enumerates his specific qualities;
and still another part treats of "the highest man as law-giver of the
future." This section, however, is not a mere series of detached and
isolated definitions, but an important summary of the ethical code
which Nietzsche advanced as a result of his application of the doctrine
of the will to power to the order of individual rank.
The two remaining sections--"Dionysus" and "Eternal Recurrence"--are
short, and fail to touch on new ground. There are a few robust and
heroic passages in the former section which summarise Nietzsche's
definitions of Apollonian and Dionysian; but in the latter section
there is nothing not found in the pamphlet called "The Eternal
Recurrence" and in "Thus Spake Zarathustra." I do not doubt that
Nietzsche had every intention of elaborating this last section, for
he considered the principle of recurrence a most important one in his
philosophy. But, as it stands, it is but a few pages in length and in
no way touches upon his other philosophical doctrines. If importance it
had in the philosophy of the superman, that importance was never shown
either by Nietzsche or by his critics.
However, let us not overlook the importance of the doctrine of the
will to power either in its relation to Nietzsche's writings or in its
application to ourselves. By this doctrine the philosopher wished to
make mankind realise its great dormant power. The insistence on the
human basis of all things was no more than a call to arms--an attempt
to instil courage in men who had attributed all great phenomena to
supernatural forces and had therefore acquiesced before them instead
of having endeavoured to conquer them. Nietzsche's object was to make
man surer of himself, to infuse him with pride, to imbue him with more
daring, to awaken him to a full realisation of his possibilities.
This, in brief, is the teaching of the will to power reduced to its
immediate influences. In this doctrine is preached a new virility.
Not the sedentary virility of compromise, but the virility which is
born of struggle and suffering, which is a sign of one's great love
of living. Nietzsche offered a new set of vital ideals to supplant
the decadent ones which now govern us. Resolute faith, the power of
affirmation, initiative, pride, courage and fearlessness--these are the
rewards in the exercise of the will to power. The strength of great
love and the vitality of great deeds, as well as the possibility of
rare and vigorous growth, lie within this doctrine of will. Its object
is to give back to us the life we have lost--the life of beauty and
plenitude, of strength and exuberance.